stration: Figure 3.--SCALE MODEL of _Steam Battery_, showing double
hull, in the Museum of History and Technology. (Smithsonian photo
P-63390-D.)]

Guns for the battery were another problem. Only 3 long guns (32-pdr.),
were available at the Navy Yard. The Secretary of the Navy promised some
captured guns then at Philadelphia. Because of the blockade, these had
to come overland to New York. The captured guns thus obtained were
probably English, part of the cargo of the British ship _John of
Lancaster_ captured by the frigate _President_ early in the war.
Apparently 24 guns were obtained this way; only 2 were obtained from the
Navy Yard. In July the Supervising Committee carried out some
experimental damage studies, in which a 32-pdr. was fired at a target
representing a section of the topsides of the battery. Drawings of the
result were sent to the Secretary of the Navy.

Further problems arose over the delays of the government in making
payments: the banks discounted the Treasury notes, so the Committee
members had to advance $5,000 out of their own pockets. There was fear
that British agents might damage the vessel, and although the project
was undoubtedly known to the British, no evidence of any act of sabotage
was ever found. Captain David Porter was assigned to the command of the
battery in November, and it was upon his request that the vessel was
later rigged with sails.

With the _Steam Battery_ approaching completion, the Secretary of the
Navy became more enthusiastic and the construction of other batteries of
this type was again proposed. Captain Stiles, a Baltimore merchant,
offered to build a steam battery, the hull to cost $50,000; the entire
cost of the vessel, $150,000, was raised in Baltimore and the frames of
a battery erected. Another battery was projected at Philadelphia and the
Secretary of the Navy wanted one or more built at Sackett's Harbor, but
naval officers and Fulton objected. A bill put before Congress to
authorize another half million to build steam batteries passed the first
reading January 9, 1815, went to the House February 22, 1815, but the
end of the war prevented any further action on it.

On February 24, 1815, Fulton died. He had been to Trenton, New Jersey,
to attend a hearing on the steamboat monopoly and, on the way back, the
ferry on North River was caught in the ice. Fulton and his lawyer,
Emmet, had to walk over the ice to get ashore. On the way, Emmet fell
through and Fulton